Loft insulation in Winterborne Stickland
Loft top-ups and cleared roof spaces on cottages and village houses around Winterborne Stickland and DT11, measured first and priced in writing.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
On an old cottage the loft is usually the one improvement you can make without asking anybody. Nothing above the ceiling shows from the lane, so the work is the depth itself, the last metre at the eaves, and keeping the roof able to dry.
Two things bring most of the calls in. A cold house that swallows heat, where the roof space turns out to hold a thin and broken layer somebody laid a long time ago. And damp on the roof timbers, which is a ventilation fault far more often than it is a shortage of material.
We survey before we price, and the visit is free. That means getting into the roof space, measuring the depth in several places rather than judging it from the hatch, following the roof out to the wall plate, and looking at the timbers and the air paths while we are up there. You get photographs of what we find and a written itemised quote, with the clearing, the material and depth, the edges, the hatch and the pipework as separate lines.
The work
Depth, edges and the awkward parts of an old roof
What is up there. Rarely anything tidy. One shallow layer between the joists, settled, patchy where people have crawled through it and missing where it should have carried on over the wall plate. Sometimes old loose fill underneath that has worked its way into the eaves. Anything wet or contaminated by droppings gets bagged in the roof space and carried out. Whatever is still sound is straightened and left in place.
Rebuilding the depth. A new unbacked roll is cross laid over the joists at right angles to what is between them, so the timber is covered rather than left as a line of cold bridges through the ceiling. Two layers reach roughly 270mm, which is the sort of depth a current U value asks for. In an old roof the joists are uneven in spacing and depth, so batts cut to fit are often quicker and tighter than roll around a chimney breast, a purlin or a strut.
Ceilings that will not take a foot. Lath and plaster is common here, and it carries nothing. Nothing is stood on a ceiling and nothing is dragged over one. We move on boards spanning the joists and lay outwards from them, working the far corners first, because the corner reached last is the one that ends up short. That is slower than an open modern loft and it is priced as labour rather than discovered on the day.
Letting the roof dry. Insulation runs out over the wall plate and stops, with a vent tray in each rafter bay keeping the air gap open so cross ventilation still works across the space. Old roofs with no underlay breathe through the covering itself, which is why the timbers in them are usually sound. Where a roof has been relaid on felt or a breathable membrane, the eaves become the only route air has, and filling them gives you condensation on the underside and black mould along the rafters within a winter.
The rest of it. The tank and its pipework are lagged and given a lid once the loft has gone cold, and nothing is laid beneath the tank. Recessed lights take fire rated covers, and cable and wiring are lifted and clipped above the new layer instead of being buried. If the space is used, boarding goes on loft legs as a raised floor over full depth, with a platform at the head of the loft ladder and an insulated, draught sealed hatch. Where a cottage has a room in the roof, a dormer or a sloping ceiling, the work moves to the rafters: rigid board cut between them, the air gap held open above, PIR beneath and the vapour control taped through.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting your work out to somebody you have never met. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: the survey, clearing and bagging whatever is up there now, the material and its depth, keeping the eaves clear, the hatch and any pipework, and disposal on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.
Nothing is left open or unusable overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
No planning application is needed. Insulation inside an existing roof space is not development, as Planning Portal guidance on insulation sets out, so it sits inside permitted development, and that holds within Winterborne Stickland Conservation Area too because nothing outside the building changes. Anything visible on the roof, a vent or a rooflight, is a matter for Dorset Council instead. Building control applies where a thermal element is renovated rather than topped up, since regulation 23 expects the whole element brought up to standard and Approved Document L sets what that is.
Cost
What decides the price of a loft
No rate per square metre, because the floor area is the easy part and the awkward edges are where the time goes.
Getting to it. A cottage with a small trap in a bedroom ceiling, a village house where the roof space is split by a chimney breast, and a modern bungalow with a landing hatch and a fitted ladder are three quite different days. A hatch on a landing you can stand a ladder under is one job. A hatch over a stairwell, a crawl space you can only move through on your knees, or a loft full of boarding that has to come up and go back, is time before any material is laid.
What is up there now, and what it is sitting on. Old material that has to come out, be bagged and taken away is a cost before anything new goes down, and so is a loft full of boxes that has to be emptied and put back. Joists at 400 centres with a flat run across them is a different afternoon from a trussed roof full of bracing.
Ventilation, and the edges nobody reaches. Insulation stops at the wall plate and the eaves have to stay clear, or you trade a warm bedroom for a wet roof. Getting depth right into the corners and around the hatch, boxing over downlighters and lagging anything that now sits in the cold, is most of the labour. Approved Document L sets what the work is expected to reach.
Comparing quotes? Ask what depth is actually being laid and in how many layers, whether the old material is coming out or being covered over, whether the eaves are being kept clear, what happens to anything you store up there, and whether the hatch and the pipework are included. Two quotes for the same job are usually two different jobs.
If the loft is wet
Water running off the felt, or mould on the underside
Ring rather than use the form. Droplets on the underside of the felt, black mould spreading across the roof timbers, or insulation that is visibly damp are all telling you the same thing: warm wet air is getting into a space that cannot breathe. That does not wait, because it is the timbers that pay for it. We look before anything is added, because putting more insulation into a loft that cannot ventilate makes it worse. Winterborne Stickland is at the far end of our patch, so a roof space with water running off it is booked as a first call rather than squeezed onto the end of a day. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
On a listed cottage this is the improvement that needs nobody's permission
There are 25 listed entries in and around the village, and if yours is one of them you will already know how much of the building is somebody else's decision. Windows, doors, the roof covering, the render, all of it comes with a consent attached. The roof space is the exception. Material laid over the ceiling alters nothing historic, shows nowhere and takes nothing away, so a straightforward top-up is usually the one fabric improvement available to you without an application. listed building consent is where to check if you are unsure.
How we work in a listed roof is a little different, and it is worth saying. Nothing is fixed into historic timber, nothing is cut to make a route through, and old boards are lifted rather than screwed over. The material sits loose over the ceiling, so it can be taken back out again without leaving a mark, and we keep the ventilation as it was found rather than improving it with something that shows. If your job does turn out to need consent, which happens once you get into rafter level work or a rooflight, we will tell you before we order anything rather than halfway through.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Winterborne Stickland, Winterborne Whitechurch, Winterborne Clenston, Blandford Forum and the DT11 addresses around them, with Dorset Council for planning, listed building consent and building control. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.
Questions
Winterborne Stickland questions we get asked
Do we need consent for a loft top-up on a listed cottage?
Usually not. Laying material over the ceiling changes nothing that can be seen and nothing historic, so it is not normally work that needs consent. It is different once you line out at rafter level, fix into old timber, form a room or add a rooflight. Tell us it is listed when you ring and we will sort out which it is before ordering.
Will more insulation make the roof damp?
Only if the air is ignored. A properly insulated ceiling means a colder roof space, and cold surfaces collect moisture, so the eaves stay open with trays, the hatch is sealed, and gaps around pipes and cables are closed. Where condensation is already dripping off the roof we deal with the ventilation before adding any depth at all.
Our ceilings are lath and plaster. Is that a problem?
It changes the method, not the outcome. The insulation itself weighs very little. The risk is feet, so we work off boards spanning the joists and never step between them. If a ceiling is already cracked or sagging we will point it out first, because that wants sorting before anything goes on top of it.
What are we aiming for, and does it show anywhere?
About 270mm in two layers, the second cross laid over the joists. Heat loss through the ceiling is the biggest item you can still cut in an old house, since the walls are difficult and expensive by comparison. The depth is recorded on an EPC, and you feel it in the rooms and on the heating bill through the same winter.
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Want the roof space looked at before anything is added?
We will measure the depth, check the ventilation and the timbers, and put an itemised written price in front of you, with a straight answer on anything that would need consent. Both are free.